Millions of people rely on electronic devices to communicate with their family, friends, co-workers, etc. These electronic devices include computers, mobile phones, tablet computers, or other similar electronic devices. And each device may include numerous communication channels, such as telephone, text messaging, mail, instant messaging, video chat, or various forms of social networking.
Although these electronic devices have simplified communications, they can also be a nuisance. For example, often alerts for incoming communications can interrupt important meetings, quiet events, or sleep with audible, visible, or light notifications. A few solutions exist to counter this problem. For example, users can suppress alerts by silencing their device, turning their device to a vibrate mode, or activating a “Do Not Disturb” (DND) feature during a preset period of time. Of these three suppression features, DND is the most customizable. For example, the user can customize a DND so that alerts are unsuppressed for certain contacts (e.g., family, co-workers, etc.). Alternatively, the user can customize a DND feature to suppress audible alerts, but allow certain visual alerts.
So, a user can activate their device to suppress communication alerts entirely, or to suppress communication alerts for a specified set of contacts. And any suppression is deactivated when a preset suppression period ends or the user manually ends the suppression (e.g., turning off the DND feature, reactivating a ring tone, etc.). But these devices cannot dynamically override alert suppressions based on prior user actions. For example, a user may want the system to override the alert suppression for a third party incoming communication when that communication is determined to be responsive. This would be particularly useful if the user is attempting to contact the third party when one or more alert suppressions are activated. Therefore, there is need in the art for systems and methods that can dynamically override an alert suppression based on a user's prior actions.